Popular British racing driver Sean Edwards, 26, was killed in a crash at Queensland Raceway in Australia earlier today. The driver, who played his father in the film RUSH and currently leads the Porsche Supercup championship, was a passenger in a car that hit a tire wall and burst into flames.

According to reports and his own Twitter account, Sean Edwards was in Australia's Queensland Raceway to help coach drivers and was thus in the passenger seat of a 911 Cup car when the crashed into the wall. The driver is in critical condition and badly burnt after it took firefighters three hours to get the man out of the car. Edwards, it's reported, was killed instantly.

While Edwards isn't a household name in the U.S., he was popular amongst drivers and a fixture at the Nürburgring where he raced in VLN and won the 24-hour race there. Currently, he's the points leader in the Porsche Supercup championship with just a double-header at Yas Marina to go.

You may have seen him this year racing at VIR and the Daytona 24, or in the film RUSH where he plays his father, F1 driver Guy Edwards. That's Edwards in the climactic scene helping pull a crumpled Lauda from his Ferrari. Here's an onboard with him at the 'Ring in 2011:

It's another great loss to the racing community this year and a reminder of the dangers still present in modern racing.